Page:The American Boy's Handy Book edition 1.djvu/249

with his life. With your hatchet cut a forked stick and drive it in the ground a few feet from the fence; rest one end of a plank on this forked stick and allow the other end to protrude some distance beyond the opposite side of the fence. Select a heavy stick for the deadfall, and a very much smaller stick for the trigger; near the end of the trigger cut a notch for the catch-stick to rest in. Sharpen the ends of two small forked sticks and drive them into splits made near the ends of the board with the corner of the hatchet. Lay a cross piece from one forked stick to the other, and with a bit of string or vegetable fibre suspend the catch-stick from the centre of the cross stick. Tie the inside end of the trigger loosely to the deadfall, and adjust the trap so that when the end of the deadfall rests upon the catch-stick the latter will hold the trigger an inch or so Image missingFig. 140.Toll-gate Trap. above the plank. To prevent the trap from swaying and to guide the deadfall in the proper direction, two upright guidesticks should be erected (Fig. 140). The weight of a squirrel's foot upon the bottom bar slips it from the catch-stick and down comes the deadfall upon the shoulders of the victim.

This same style of trap may be made upon a much larger